


per ardua ad avicellum

by Owl_by_Night



Series: Birdie's Tale [1]
Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Dogs, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Flyboys, Implied Smut, M/M, as you might expect from the era, some details of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 15:09:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14771984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owl_by_Night/pseuds/Owl_by_Night
Summary: It begins with Fortis Leader having engine trouble and making an emergency landing in a field full of cows.That isn’t really the full story but it is how Collins will tell it years later, when he’s invited to the officers’ mess by the neighbouring squadron’s commissioned pilots and some new chap wants to know why he has a dog.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [hightide2018](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/hightide2018) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> I'd like to see Team Fortis adopt a dog during the Phoney War (which Fortis Leader is initially against but warms up to.) How and if Collins could manage to take care of it after the events at Dunkirk is up to the filler of the prompt. 
> 
>  
> 
> I loved this prompt from the first time I read it and just had to write a fill. It covered more time than I expected but I had to answer both sides - how the dog was adopted and also how they came to keep her. Further notes and thanks are at the end but may contain spoilers!

It begins with Fortis Leader having engine trouble and making an emergency landing in a field full of cows.

That isn’t really the full story but it is how Collins will tell it years later, when he’s invited to the officers’ mess by the neighbouring squadron’s commissioned pilots and some new chap wants to know why he has a dog.

Canfield landing in a field full of cows: it sets the tone. This is the sort of story that’s going to end with you buying me a beer. You’re allowed to laugh. Told that way, it covers up anything that Collins doesn’t want to share with rookie pilots or anyone else. About the original Fortis group, about Canfield and Dunkirk. About Farrier. About the fact that she was never _his_ dog but _their_ dog, and the way it still hurts.

So instead he starts with Canfield, Canfield in his field full of cows.

In reality, engine trouble is never funny. There’s not a pilot in the world who wants to be three thousand feet above the earth with an engine smoking and the very real risk that you might drop, or burn, or spin straight into a field below. Still, Canfield is a damn good pilot with more years of experience than Collins and Farrier put together and he puts the old girl down as gently as he can. The cows come later, drawn by bovine curiosity to look at this strange machine parked on their bit of grass. The rest of Fortis group watch them from the air and Collins feels the laughter bubbling up in him, part relief, part acknowledgment of the farcical way the day is going. From near death to cows: it’s all in a day’s work to a pilot.

Farrier has no qualms about finding it hilarious. He and Canfield suffer from a clash of personalities that has persisted from the pre-war days. Canfield can never forget that he knew Farrier as a brand new pilot, only just given his wings and in need of proper training and Farrier in turn thinks that Canfield is a pain in the arse. They butt heads at regular intervals but Farrier defers to Canfield in the air. Until, of course, Canfield is on the ground.

“Come on Collins,” Farrier says cheerfully over the radio, voice wobbling with static and laughter, “let’s head for home and tell them where he is.”

The squadron leader, Hawkins, has one of his moments when he hears where they’ve left the third Spitfire. He’s usually unflappable but losing a plane for no good reason sets him off. With one thing and another, he sends them out again with the airfield’s battered old repair truck and an engineer to fix the faulty engine. Collins goes because he feels he ought to, Farrier goes because he won’t turn down an afternoon out with Collins. He drives, while Collins navigates, matching what they saw from the air to the narrow country lanes back on the ground.

The find the Spitfire surrounded by cows, a gloomy looking Canfield and the farmer. As they watch, one of them hitches her rear against a wing for a scratch. Canfield barks at her to move. The farmer, smirking slightly, pats the cow and tells her to 'get on, girl'.

Collins always enjoys telling this part of the story: the amused farmer and the angry engineer watching his beloved Spitfire being investigated by cows. The need to remove the cows becomes pressing and the pilots are recruited to help: the farmer arms them with pails of cow nuts. There's a lot of humour involved in persuading cows to move when they don’t want to. Canfield has an encounter with a cow pat. Collins has his hair washed.

Collins doesn't have a lot of practical experience with cows but he has relatives who farm and Farrier is game if Collins is. The two of them have fun with it: it’s a better way to spend the afternoon than being back on base. The farmer lets them hose off hands and boots afterwards under the freezing cold water of the farmhouse pump. Collins rinses his hair as well, which is spikey with cow spit, and comes up spluttering.

The farmer, watching them, grudgingly admits that he’s impressed with their cow herding and offers tea. Canfield and the engineer have stayed out with the plane so they miss out on the luxury of mugs of hot, sweet tea topped off with a liberal splash of fresh milk. Collins would appreciate that more if he hadn't just fallen in love with the most beautiful blonde he's ever met.

If Farrier could tell his part of the story he'd say that he knew there was trouble just from the look on Collins' face. The look that Farrier himself finds strangely unable to say no to. Collins, who always liked dogs and wanted a pup from boyhood, has abandoned his tea and sunk to his knees besides the farmhouse range where a labrador is lying in a basket with three yellow puppies. He offers a cautious hand for her to sniff when the farmer tells him she's friendly.

The love affair is mutual: the puppies leave the basket to tumble over his boots and gnaw on his hands. The mother of the pups follows to lean heavily against Collins and push her head under his arm. Farrier is glad he's not the only one who has trouble resisting the Collins charm.

Two of the pups get distracted easily and begin to tussle over a knotted length of rope while the palest one chews on the toe of Collins' boot. He stops her with gentle hands and pets her soft fur while she looks up at him with warm brown eyes. The mother thumps her tail against the flagged floor as if in approval.

"I suppose they've all got homes," Farrier asks the farmer, hoping to avert disaster.

"Well, they've got good parents and that makes them popular. Keeper'll have that one and his lordship'll take his brother. He always likes to have a dog about the place, but folks aren't so keen to take a pup just now. What with the war and all. She's still needing a home." He points at the pale puppy, who is now in Collins' arms and washing his hair.

Farrier wonders if God is laughing at him.

"I'll keep her, of course," the farmer says, "if we don't find someone. I'd not let her go just anywhere."

At this moment, Canfield arrives on the threshold, looking aggrieved. "The plane’s not ready to fly yet," he announces, "we'll need a new part. I trust you can keep the cows away from her until..." He trails off, looking at Collins, crouched on the floor and covering his uniform with fur.

There's a pause. The farmer ducks his head to hide a smile. Collins turns the full charm of his blue eyes on Canfield.

"No," says Canfield, "absolutely not. I leave you for five minutes and you're picking up every stray mutt in sight."

It takes Farrier several months to confess to Collins the sudden realisations he has in that moment. He had been convinced that a dog was a ridiculous commitment for a pilot and looking for a way to distract Collins long enough for him to forget about it and not get too attached. In that split second though, he realises three things that will change his life forever. The first is that he wants Collins to have the dog. The second, coming fractionally later, is that he wants Collins to have everything he wants because Collins' happiness is now a driving force in Farrier’s life and thirdly, oh fuck, that probably means that things with Collins have moved far past ‘casual’ without him noticing.

He takes in Collins rather boyish pleading expression and the stern look Canfield is giving him. Well then. There's only one way to get Canfield to say yes to something.

"I agree," Farrier says, taking a nonchalant sip of tea, "you can't just bring any old dog on to base. Squadron leader would have a fit."

 

Collins will say afterwards that he persuaded them. Nobody who knows him then would question it, because they didn't know young Collins, who'd only just joined the war and still looked like a schoolboy put in the wrong uniform by mistake. They only know the new Collins, the one who survived the Battle of Britain as a hero, who gives orders like a man born to it and is known for talking his way into anyone's good graces. Either way, the result is the same. Fortis group drive back to base with their numbers expanded by one Labrador puppy, currently unnamed, with a blanket and collar and a lead made from a length of bailer twine. It is the first and only time they'll go on a sortie and come back having added to their numbers. Civilians wince at that line, when they work it out. Pilots laugh.

They smuggle the dog onto base in the back of the van, sitting at Collins' feet. They could have asked permission of course, but they are young and there's a war on, so they make it a secret. Of course that means by dinner time, everyone on base is talking about Fortis group and their new dog.

"So," asks Pilot Officer March, who shares a room with Collins and Farrier and inevitably had to be told, "what are you calling her?"

"Calling who?" Collins looks up from his plate of sausage and mash with an innocent expression.

"The dog you don't have," says Thompson. "Pass the water jug would you?"

Farrier, sitting elbow to elbow with Collins, pushes the jug down the table. “If there was a dog, she wouldn’t have a name yet.”

“You could call her Spitfire.”

“I’m not calling her after a plane,” Collins says firmly, “every dog gets named after planes these days.” 

“Besides,” says March, “I’ve met her and she’s not the Spitfire type.”

“Yellow, isn’t she? You could call her after one of the training aircraft.” Thompson isn’t known for being imaginative.

“I said no planes, besides, I’m not calling her after a tiger moth just because she’s the same colour. You can’t just call her after something yellow.”

“It was only a suggestion!” Thompson makes a rude gesture, which Collins amicably returns.

“She’s not RAF yellow anyway,” says Farrier.

“No,” March says thoughtfully, “more like cream or custard colour.”

“I’m not calling her custard either.” Collins waves a fork meaningfully.

“Who’s not being called custard?” Berryman, the fourth man to share a room with Collins, sits down with his meal.

“The dog that doesn’t live in our room and doesn’t belong to Fortis group.” March smiles at him across the table.

“Ah, that dog. The one that wasn’t curled up on Farrier’s jacket just now. Are we keeping her?”

“Apparently.” Farrier gives half a smile and nudges Collins’ thigh with his knee. Collins drops his hand beneath the table to give Farrier’s knee a quick squeeze in return.

“We need a name though,” Collins says, “any ideas?”

The conversation winds on all evening, over stodgy jam sponge and custard, and is still going when a few of them go back to see the puppy, to feed her and take her out for a gambol around on the grass beside the long accommodation block. They try out names, seeing if she likes them. Farrier sits on the grass with her, smoking and rolling an old tennis ball around for her chase.

Collins is distracted from watching him by someone making a joke about Bird’s custard powder.

“For the last time, I’m not calling her custard or Bird or…”

The puppy yaps, sharply. Collins pauses to look at her.

“Bird?” he says. The puppy ignores him.

“Birdie?” Farrier says, “good girl Birdie.” The puppy wiggles her way up to him, tail wagging, and flops into his lap.

“You’ve named her then,” Canfield says, appearing around the corner. “Squadron Leader’s heading this way. You’d best get her inside.”

“Thanks,” Collins says, “come on girl.”

Canfield stops him and hands over a bit of fabric. It looks like the leg of a pair of trousers (not uniform) knotted at both ends. “You might want this, stop her chewing everything in sight.”

Collins smiles, although Canfield looks quite severe. Perhaps he still disapproves of having a dog at all.

They make Birdie a bed on the floor next to Collins' bunk so that he can keep an eye on her during the night. His bed is next to Farrier’s on the right of the windows. Fortunately March and Berryman, who have their beds on the left, haven’t raised any objections to having a dog in the room. March is already fairly smitten, introducing himself to her with bribery and tummy rubs. He’s got a sketchbook open and is drawing her now while Berryman closes the shutters for the blackout. Nobody has made a move to the mess bar tonight. Collins feels as happy as he can remember being since he joined the squadron, or at least, a different kind of happiness. The happiness he has missed from being with his family, busy with some shared purpose.

When Collins announces he’s going to get ready for bed, Farrier looks up at him over his book and purposefully stubs out his cigarette. Sure enough Farrier catches up with him before Collins is done cleaning his teeth, leaning against the bathroom door in vest and pyjama trousers. Collins meets his eyes in the mirror.

“So, we’ve got a dog then.” Farrier says. He folds his arms and Collins admires his broad shoulders, as he’s meant to.

“So we do.” Collins rinses his mouth and spits. Farrier puts a hand on his shoulder as he straightens, turning him and kissing hard. Collins has an inch or two on Farrier but he goes willingly enough when Farrier backs him against the wall, tugging a hand into his hair. They kiss for a while, Collins getting his thigh in between Farrier’s and a hand round to grope his arse.

There’s a bang on the door from outside and a voice shouting, “hurry up in there!”

“Fuck off and wait your turn!” Collins calls back. They separate, breathing hard. Farrier kisses him once more, gently, then goes to the sink and runs water to wash his face. Collins waits until he looks less dishevelled and then goes back to the room. He’d like more than these snatched moments, but he’ll take what he can.

Birdie seems quite well behaved that night although in the small hours she whimpers and whines. Collins puts a hand out to her and meets Farrier's hand doing the same. They link their fingers together, just for a moment. Birdie washes them both and seems happy enough to go back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Whenever Birdie is mentioned later in the war, someone usually points out how well trained she is. Collins usually just says 'of course' and reaches down to pat her, feeling her good behaviour should be rewarded. Sometimes he says she was specially trained to be an RAF dog. Certainly she is very good at knowing her way about, avoiding the hazards of a working airfield and walking obediently to heel next to Collins.

It helped that it was a cold winter, that first winter of the war, and they found themselves grounded at times as runways froze and the Germans were busy with their own preparations for the spring. They were still always on alert though, feeling the pressure of what was to come, and training Birdie was a good distraction. An outlet for the adrenaline and what the squadron leader called ‘high spirits’.

Collins and Farrier don't train her alone. You can't bring a puppy onto a base full of men (men missing their own homes and dogs) and not expect everyone to take an interest. Fortunately, along with the interest comes forgiveness for the odd lapse: a pair of chewed gloves here or a stolen sausage roll there. Some of the men have experience with dogs and teach Collins along with Birdie. She learns to sit and roll, to stay and to walk at heel. She has a seemingly endless capacity for playing fetch and Farrier indulges her.

The squadron leader isn’t officially supposed to know about her existence but he doesn’t raise an eyebrow when he sees her following Collins for the first time. Once she finds her way to his office while most of the squadron is flying and stays there all afternoon. After that her place is assured.

 

Farrier is usually the one who wakes up first in their shared room: he’s been in the RAF longer than the rest of them and is by nature an early riser. He takes Birdie for her first walk and sits with her while he has his first smoke of the day, waiting for Collins to wake up and drag himself out of bed. He's a superior officer's nightmare. Many is the morning when PO Collins gets a bollocking for non-regulation uniform and appearance. He takes it lightly. Farrier suspects this is because he hasn't woken up enough to care. When he does join Farrier and Birdie he is a quiet, sleepy presence. It’s one of the more peaceful times of the day.

Unlike Collins in the mornings, Birdie has the boundless energy of all young pups and the base gives her a lot of space to run around in. March is fond of running: he says it's a good antidote to being cooped up in a cockpit. He takes Birdie with him for company, a more enthusiastic running partner than either Collins or Berryman. Collins and Farrier may be the two she comes back to most often but she feels like a station mascot: a dog for all of them.

Collins buys a camera, the first he's ever owned, and wastes a couple of rolls of film taking photos of Birdie to practice. He takes photos of Farrier too: beside his Spitfire, in dispersals, playing with Birdie, standing in Sunday morning sunshine on the road to the village. He also takes photos of the other men, partly to hide that it's Farrier he really wants to photograph and partly because he knows that they can’t all survive the war. He doesn’t want to forget who they were, what it was like. Once word gets round a lot of men want photographs with Birdie. March and Berryman have their photo taken together, then with Birdie between them like a canine chaperone.

One photograph he takes is of Farrier asleep in the sun with Birdie beside him. He can pass it off as a joke, but really he wants proof of the moment, of how Farrier looks when he is off guard and relaxed. Collins looks at that one for a very long time: at the softness in Farrier’s face, an expression Collins usually only sees when they are alone together. He labels it ‘Tom and Birdie, spring 1940’ rather than ‘Farrier and Birdie’ without thinking.

Collins documents all his photographs, writing careful notes and dates on the back in pencil. March takes one of him with Farrier and when Collins catches himself writing his own name on the back he realises that he is expecting someone else to look at these one day without expecting to be there to tell them, yes, this was me when I was young.

He acknowledges the thought, then stuffs it to the back of his mind as unhelpful and takes care not to think it again. It has been too quiet this far into the war and he knows it can’t last.

His collection of photographs in the envelope grows. A record of life on base: the officer’s mess, the village pub, pilots waiting to fly. A record of Birdie growing up too, from her gangly teenage stage, all legs and ears, to almost an adult dog. He asks March to take a photo of the whole of Fortis group with their mascot and after a show of reluctance Canfield agrees to take part. While March is lining them up to his satisfaction, ever the artist, Birdie goes to sit in front of Canfield and Collins takes a chance shot of the two of them. When he has it developed he sees he’s caught one of the best moments: Canfield has a rare smile on his face and Birdie is gazing up at him, mouth open to pant, so they look like the best of friends.

The one of Fortis group comes out well too: Canfield and Farrier standing beside the engines of the Spitfire while Collins perches on the wing beside Farrier. Birdie sits beside Canfield, looking obediently at the camera.

 

Other than when they are training her or exercising her, the best time to be with Birdie is in the dispersals hut. Collins hates the long waiting time: the slow rising of tension that builds like an itch between his shoulder blades. He has always fidgeted. Birdie gives him a reason to move, either to entertain her or to sit with her, feeling the textures of her coat, her tail thumping against him when he calls her a good girl.

They sleep sometimes, while they wait, or at least lie down. The days can be long and it's the only time Collins can justify lying next to Farrier, even if it's top to tail on a sofa with Birdie lying heavily on his stomach. Other times they play cards or chess. Collins has never been good at chess, but he's improving slowly. Card games are a different matter. He grew up with four competitive siblings after all.

When they scramble, it's a race to get going. There's no time for anything: they have four minutes to be in the air. There's certainly no time for privacy or a private word. Besides, saying anything would be too final: bad luck to say goodbye, stupid to say be careful. When the phone rings, Collins goes to his knees beside Birdie, who already knows what's up. She's a smart dog and she knows the sound of the telephone.

"Think that's us girl. Love you," he says to the satin fur of her ears, but his eyes are on Farrier.

"Best of luck, Collins," Farrier says. It's the best he has. Collins beams at him: message received and understood.

Embarrassed, Farrier ruffles the fur on the back of Birdie's neck. "See you later Birdie," he says.

"Alright boys," calls the squadron leader, putting down the phone.

They run as a group towards the planes and behind him Farrier can hear the other men, one by one, calling 'see you later Birdie'. Like all the best good luck rituals, it sticks. The only person who doesn't seem take part is Canfield, who remains rather aloof in the matter of dogs.


	3. Chapter 3

"But Canfield came round eventually?" asks the young pilot who first wanted to know about Birdie, pushing another beer across the bar to Collins. He's shy, perhaps a bit in awe. New to the RAF and young, Collins thinks of him as a boy, although he's only six years younger. There's something about him that’s reminiscent of Peter Dawkins in his looks, although Peter was calmer, under it all. This boy is jumpier, a bit too bright for his own good and thinking too much. Like so many others of that type, Collins doubts he'll make it through. He was one of them, once upon a time. He has Farrier to thank for teaching him to survive.

Collins pushes the thought aside as he always does. He takes a sip of his beer and savours it for a moment before continuing. "Well, I think Canfield was less disapproving than we thought he was. You see, we had a bit of a rough trip..."

The call to scramble comes at about 15 hundred hours and leads to an unsatisfactory dogfight. They spend a lot of time ducking in and out of cloud, playing chicken with ME109s and while both sides get a few shots in, neither of them succeeds in hitting much. In the end, lack of ammunition takes precedence and the planes separate into the cloud cover. It's only as they turn that Collins hears a few bangs over the radio and Farrier swearing.  

"Fortis One, report," Canfield says and Collins is glad because his own tongue is glued to the roof of a suddenly dry mouth.

"Fuck. Bastard got me just before he disappeared."

"How bad is it?"

"It's fine, canopy shattered on the right, think a bit of it cut my forehead open. Bleeding a lot though."

Collins breathes again, although flying with any kind of wound is difficult, at least it's not the worst. Before he'd flown with Farrier, he'd flown with a group that lost a man like that: shot and bleeding out in his cockpit, then tumbling from the sky when he lost consciousness. No chute.

"Can you stop the bleeding?" Canfield asks and Collins envies him his calm presence of mind. Say what you like about him, he’s good in a crisis.

"Don't know, don't know what with. Making it hard to see." Farrier sounds reasonably calm but even over the radio static there's an edge of fear creeping through. They depend so much on sight to stay alive. As they told them in training: the enemy that kills you is the enemy you don't see.

"Farrier," Collins says, forcing himself into action again, "use your scarf if you have it. I'm going to drop back behind you to keep watch. You think about flying straight."

"Good plan, Fortis Two." Canfield stresses the call sign. He doesn't approve of people breaking protocol as Collins has done, using Farrier's name.

"Thank you _Collins_ ," Farrier says and Collins smiles behind his oxygen mask. If Farrier is taking the piss it's a good sign.

It's a long, tense journey home. Collins feels his neck ache from turning and turning, trying to see every bit of sky that Farrier can't. They are out of usual formation too and he has to remember to keep in place. Farrier starts to sound a bit muddled over the radio and Collins worries. Head wounds can bleed profusely and he doesn't know how bad it really is. Canfield just starts talking, as if it's nothing unusual, asking Farrier questions. They talk a fair bit of rubbish on the last stretch.

Canfield radios the station once they are in range and asks to come in first out of the Spits that are circling. They agree and Canfield sends Farrier down first, waiting before he follows in case Farrier misses the landing. He lands heavily, for Farrier, but not disastrously.

"Think you'd better go and fetch him, Fortis Two," Canfield says as they taxi off the runway.

Collins doesn't need telling twice. He sets off along the tarmac to Farrier's plane at a run. The cockpit is open at least. He can see from a distance that the front has been shattered on the right hand side. Collins hops up onto the wing for a better look.

Farrier wasn't wrong about the blood stopping him seeing properly. The wound is high on his forehead and the blood has run down over his face, staining his clothes and hands. Collins feels momentarily sick, which is ridiculous because he's seen far worse before. He was first on site when a new pilot cocked up his landing and went into the trees. Apparently it's different with Farrier, who looks up at him and grimaces.

The engineer who usually does maintenance for their group appears on the other wing. "Bloody hell mate," he says to Farrier. "Well, let's get you out so I can start cleaning up." He offers a wad of rags to use in place of the silk scarf.

In the end Collin leans down to unfasten the straps and together they hoist Farrier up out of the plane while he worries about holding the rags in place. Collins takes the chance to keep an arm around him as they walk to the low building that serves as a hospital.

The doctor on duty is the energetic sort. You need to be to keep up with Spitfire pilots. He has Farrier sitting down in a trice and starts freeing him from the bloody helmet and scarf. Farrier is entirely stoic about it while Collins hovers, reluctant to go but not really having an excuse to stay. Thankfully a nurse brings tea for both of them, heavily sweetened. Farrier sips his, looking a bit less pale than he did. He doesn't flinch when the doctor puts a couple of stitches in and sorts out the dressing.

Collins is called away before its done, gulping down the last of his tea and going to answer the summons for debriefing. While there, going over the details of who shot who and when, he thinks guiltily of Birdie.  

She isn’t in the dispersals hut where she has a bed made for her, or in their room where she usually goes. He’s starting to worry when Berryman points him towards the officer’s mess. There sits Canfield, two thirds of the way through a post flight helping of bacon and eggs. At his feet is Birdie, wolfing down bacon. As the last shred disappears she rests her head lovingly against Canfield’s knee and gives him the full focus of her adoring gaze. Her eyes are wide, the fur on her face gone even fluffier with begging. He looks at the bacon on his plate.

“You’re in luck girl,” he says, “not been a good day today and I’m not hungry.” He drops the last slice and Birdie gulps it down. Collins could make a joke but he doesn’t.

“Thank you,” he says instead.

Canfield’s moustache twitches. It could be embarrassment or irritation at being caught out. Then he sniffs and says mildly, “there’s coffee in the pot still. Farrier alright?”

Collins sits down to lukewarm coffee and his own meal. Birdie transfers her affections to him in turn because of his full plate. “You’ve already been fed,” he tells her, “you’ll get fat.”

Canfield makes a sound that might almost be called a laugh. He passes the rack of toast. For the first time, Collins feels like he’s sharing breakfast with a friend rather than his schoolmaster.

Afterwards, Canfields goes off to talk to the engineers about the repairs. He always keeps an eye on them: paranoia Farrier calls it, in case they miss something. Collins assembles a rough bacon sandwich from the remains of the food and, against the regulation notice insisting that no crockery be removed from the mess, pilfers a cup of tea to go with it. 

He and Birdie find Farrier in their room, lying on the bed and dozing. He's still half dressed, out of his jumper and boots but still wearing his uniform shirt, stained red at the collar and marked with sweat. His feet look small in their woollen socks and Collins feels a surge of protectiveness.

"I brought supper,” Collins says softly. Birdie, with no respect for sleeping humans, bustles up to the bed to put her wet nose in Farrier’s face and give him a good sniff. He splutters into wakefulness.

“Ugh, he says, then as he sits up, “fuck, I’ve got a headache.”

“Did the doctor give you anything?”

“Yes, and a few more pills for later. Is that tea?”

“Yes.” Collins hands over the cup and saucer. “There’s a bacon sandwich too if you want it. If you don’t want it, Birdie does.”

Farrier reaches for the sandwich as well. “Sorry Birdie,” he says around a mouthful.

“Don’t be,” Collins says, perching on the end of Farrier’s bed with Birdie leaning against his knee. “Canfield’s been feeding her.”

“Wonders will never cease.”

They are quiet for a while, Farrier eating most of his sandwich before he gives up, claiming to be too tired to eat more.

“You scared me up there,” Collins says, wishing he hadn’t spoken as soon as the words leave his mouth.

“I’m sorry.” Farrier reaches out and squeezes Collins’ fingers. “I’ll try not to do that again.”

It’s not particularly late but Farrier looks tired. Collins suggests he get changed and go to bed. He shuffles to the bathroom while Collins takes Birdie outside for a quick walk and they return in time to meet Farrier on his way back, in pyjamas and wet haired.

“Will you stay?” Farrier asks him.

Collins hadn’t expected it, but there’s nowhere else to be. He’s still dressed and doesn’t dare undress for appearances sake, but he curls up behind Farrier on the narrow bed and wraps his arms around him. He buries his nose in Farrier’s neck, where he smells of soap and antiseptic, and tries to imprint every last sensation of it into his head.

Birdie hops up onto the end of the bed, looking guilty because she knows she shouldn’t be there. Neither of them have the heart to tell her to get down though. Farrier falls asleep quickly but Collins stays awake, keeping one ear open for the sound of anyone who might come in. Everything he has with Farrier feels fragile and precious after today and he holds it close, while the room grows dark around him.

 


	4. Chapter 4

The summons to the squadron leader comes the next morning at breakfast. They go together and meet Canfield, leaving. He nods and seems his usual self but Collins still wonders if it’s a bad sign that they’ve all been called in.

In the office, they stand before the desk while Squadron Leader Hawkins looks them up and down.

“How’s the head?” he asks Farrier, just as Collins is fighting the urge to fidget.

“Fine, sir,” Farrier says, although he grimaces a bit all the same.

“That’s not what the MO tells me.” Hawkins sounds amused rather than annoyed. “You’re off ops for a couple of days. You too Collins, I’m grounding Fortis group until you’re all ready to fly again and they’ve patched up your Spit. Did you know you flew back with the tail end full of bullet holes?”

“No, Sir.” Collins had thought the steering was a bit cranky but he hadn’t had much time to think about why.

“Get out of here, both of you. Get off base. I expect we’ll be busier than ever when you get back.” He frowns and Collins gets that squeezed, breathless feeling he feels in the dispersals hut. They’ve known it’s going to get worse but now it feels like the storm is about to break. The papers have been full of bad news from Europe. 

When they leave, they find Canfield sitting outside with Birdie. He’s not feeding her this time, but she’s dozed off on his feet. He says he’s going home for his leave - he’s lucky enough to have a family nearby. It’s also a bit of a relief to know he has somewhere to go, because it leaves Collins and Farrier free to go somewhere just the two of them. Farrier has a car and has been saving up petrol. He suggests they go to the sea.

“The sea?” Collins asks him, “well, why not, I suppose.”

It’s not the traditional spot for leave.  Most of the pilots go to London if they can get there, where there are bars and girls and dancing, or bars and men and dancing in their case, but Farrier isn’t feeling up to that and besides they have Birdie. Farrier says he spent childhood summers at the coast near here and Collins is intrigued enough to feel enthusiastic about going. 

It’s not that far to the Norfolk coast and they take turns driving. Collins appreciates the chance to drive Farrier’s car, which is a relatively new MG and far faster and smoother to drive than his father’s rather elderly Austen 7. Birdie does well in the car although she hasn’t been in one since they first brought her home. She sits in the back, enjoying the breeze and then curls up for a nap. They stop for a pub lunch half way and Collins and Farrier find themselves sitting in the beer garden, laughing at nothing while they stretch out in the sun. For the first time in a long time, Collins feels like he can breathe freely.  

Farrier takes over the driving again as they reach the coast road and the sea stretches out to one side of them. The clouds are drawing in a bit now and the breeze blowing onto shore is sharper. They drive past a hotel: a long, white building fading slightly to grey. Although weathered now, it looks like the sort of place that would have been grand when Farrier was a boy. Collins wonders if that was where he used to stay with his family. He watches Farrier and tries to imagine him as a boy. In short trousers, perhaps with a bucket and spade. It’s hard to imagine.

Farrier ignores the hotel and drives on into the little town that clusters along the shore. There’s an out of season feel to the place and the road signs are painted out due to the war but Farrier says it is still familiar to him. He navigates round to a pub advertising a few rooms to let.

When they enter the small bar and ask about staying, the landlady gives them a rather severe look. Collins wonders if it's the dog, Farrier's bruised face or, worse, if she has some suspicions about the two of them. He tries to look as innocent as possible. His mother would never fall for it but it’s worth trying.

"I'll not have any girls brought up to the rooms," the landlady says severely after a moment, looking particularly at Collins. He supposes the innocent look isn’t working on her either. Birdie wags her tail and gives her best begging look.

"Of course not," Farrier replies easily. "We'll share a room if you like, and I'll keep an eye on him." He nods at Collins and smiles as if he’s sharing a joke. The landlady's expression softens. Perhaps Farrier seems older and wiser. Perhaps it's just his smile, lighting up a face that can look rather grim at times.

After a bit more discussion they get a room and an offer of supper later so they leave their bags and take Birdie for a walk in the meantime. The beach is a long drift of pebbles along this stretch of coast, leading to dark yellow sand and rather grey waves. It's not like the sea up in Scotland, but the air is fresh and they are mostly alone.

Collins wonders if the holiday season will happen this year, with the war. There are signs of preparations against invasion everywhere: barbed wire and pillboxes. They are lucky to find a bit of the beach that’s open. Leaving the promenade, Birdie scrambles down over the stones on light paws, the two of them slipping and skidding after her down the bank of pebbles.

“Shoes off, Collins!”

“What?”

“It’s the seaside, Collins. That’s what you do.” Farrier is already tugging off his boots and rolling up his trouser legs.

“You must be fucking joking.” They’ve had some warm days but it’s still much too cold for paddling.

Farrier doesn’t bother replying; he just walks straight into the freezing water. Birdie gambols around him, stiff legged and jumpy, putting her nose down to the water and spluttering. She leaps back from the waves and then in again. Collins hadn’t known until today that it was possible for your heart to actually ache from loving someone. Farrier and their dog, splashing in the sea like a couple of fools.

He strips off his own boots and socks to join them. The pebbles are sharply painful under his soles and the sea is so cold it makes his knees ache. Staring out to sea is a bit like flying: all that sky ahead of them. Farrier puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes and Collins wishes he had words to share the tight, breathless feeling in his chest. Then Birdie shakes herself vigorously and sprays them both with salt water, and the next wave soaks his trousers above his knees. They howl with laughter, and words don’t matter much anymore.  

Returning to the pub with wet uniforms and a damp Birdie, the landlady seems much friendlier. She offers them an old towel for Birdie and Collins dries her, which Birdie thinks is a great game. She tries to catch the edges of it and tug as he rubs the towel around her. Her coat goes curly as it dries.

The RAF uniform takes some time to dry once it has been soaked, so they both go up to change before dinner. Collins finds himself shocked and slightly dry mouthed at the sight of Farrier. He looks very different out of uniform, in softer trousers and a warm green jumper. Collins wonders what Farrier makes of him in turn. He looks young in the mirror: an echo of Collins the student, hair tousled from the sea breeze, clothes crumpled from packing.

There’s a hesitancy at first when they go downstairs: behaving like two people who don’t know each other well. The conversation turns in an introductory way to home, to family, to the matter of who they were and what they might be if they survive this. Collins wonders what would have happened if the two of them had met before the war. Not that there would have been much chance of that. They grew up at different times, in different places. They move in different circles and with different family expectations. Collins talks about his father, about going with him on rounds to his patients, about summer holidays with his crowd of siblings.

Farrier in turn talks about school and university rather than family, then the early days of the RAF before the war. He mentions his holidays here. While Collins grew up seeking a bit of peace and quiet, Farrier grew up lonely, with a brother too old to be a playmate and rather distant parents. He talks about solitary walks on the beach while Collins remembers boisterous, noisy afternoons building sandcastles together.

“I wish I’d known you then,” he says, “you could have joined us.”

Farrier looks startled. “I’d have been too old.”

“Only Stephen’s age. He joined in as much as any of us. Especially the year we made the dam.”

The smile spreads slowly over Farrier’s face, warm and genuine. “I’d have liked that.”

They are both silent a moment. Collins imagines the two of them as boys together, maybe best friends. “I don’t suppose I’d get away with dam building now. We got in enough trouble at the time when the stream flooded, but I’d like to take you there one day, show you the scene of the crime.”

“I’d like that.” Farrier hooks his ankle around Collins’ ankle in the darkness beneath the table. As easily as that, the mood shifts. The past and the present no longer feel like two different versions of themselves. Instead, and for the first time, the bond between them feels like more than the war.  More than two people holding together because in wartime being with someone is more bearable than being alone.  It feels like something that could outlast it.

Beside them, Birdie sleeps on obliviously. She has wheedled a large dinner with her big, brown eyes and snores a little, feet twitching in canine dreams. For her, there have never been any doubts about her humans. She has assumed they are a constant fixture in her life.

The rest of the evening passes in slowly drunk pints and games of draughts and cards. It's so easy to be together. Collins has never experienced quite this feeling before. Everything, from the beer to the log fire in the bar, feels perfectly right.

They stay up until the pub closes, enjoying not being in a rush to get anywhere. They take Birdie out for a last wander and then wend their way upstairs. They’ve shared rooms before: on trips to London to visit bars that Farrier knew, places the two of them could go dancing. Those occasions had meant an evening of prolonged anticipation, of meeting Farrier’s friends and slow dancing until they couldn’t bear waiting, ending with a glorious rush of discarded clothes and desperation. Now, with a quiet place to stay and a canine chaperone it feels different.

When Collins returns from the bathroom he finds Farrier sitting up in bed in pyjamas, rubbing his forehead and swallowing aspirin.

"Headache?" Collins asks, unnecessarily. He hesitates for a moment, unsure of the etiquette, wondering whether he should join Farrier or get into the bed that is ostensibly his. Pyjamas and a headache suggest he might not be welcome.

"It's fine." 

"I can just..." He’s gestures at the bed under the window.

"For God's sake, unless you don't want to, get in!" Farrier holds up the blanket in invitation. Collins hesitates for a moment but Birdie doesn't. In the blink of an eye she's up on the bed in Farrier's arms, her tail wagging furiously. She licks his face while he splutters and flails, trying to push her away. 

"No Birdie! Get down!"

Collins almost chokes with laughing, and by the time Birdie has been banished to the floor, the strange reserve has been broken.

"You know that isn't what I meant when I said I was looking forward to going to bed with a blonde," Farrier says, smirking up at Collins.

Collins gives him a look. "You're tired."

"Just to sleep then." 

Going to bed with someone without sex is rather different to going to bed after sex, Collins discovers. There's more awkward wriggling and arranging of limbs, sharp elbows and distribution of blankets. Eventually they settle. Across the room the other bed creaks.

"Birdie is that you?" Collins asks. He squints into the shadows to see her settling down on the other bed. "Get down Birdie." He makes a move to get up.

"Ah leave her," Farrier says, tightening his arms around Collins. "It's just tonight. Let her be."

Collins is too warm and comfortable to do anything but agree. 

In the morning Farrier gets up early with Birdie, leaving Collins to sprawl into the middle of the bed, drawn to the warmth of the blankets Farrier has left. Farrier finds him still there when he returns with a cup of tea.

“Where’s Birdie?” Collins mumbles, reaching blindly for the cup.

“Supervising the cooking of breakfast with great interest. Apparently the girls in the kitchen don’t mind.”

“Just the two of us for the moment then,” Collins says. He gives Farrier a look over the edge of his cup, to see if they are thinking along the same lines. “No furry chaperone.”

“We’d best take advantage then.”

“Mmm,” Collins says, swallowing tea as quickly as he can. They don’t often get to have sex in a bed, sharing a room as they do and without much leave. It’s a luxury, even if they still need to stay quiet.

Farrier is stripping himself rapidly out of his clothes and Collins expects him to pounce as soon as he’s naked but instead he moves slowly. He takes the cup from Collins’ hand and kisses him slow and sweet. His hands are gentle, almost reverent, unbuttoning pyjamas and stroking over warm skin. Taking it slow is another kind of luxury when you have to worry about being discovered. Collins, still hazy with sleep, lets himself be undressed and rolled until he’s on top. Well, he thinks, if that’s what Farrier wants he’d best wake up a bit.

Afterwards they lie in bed together, Farrier on his back and Collins leaning over him, propped on his elbow. They study each other in the morning sunlight. Time appears to have slowed to nothing: each minute rolling unhurriedly to the next. Farrier reaches up to cup the side of Collins’ face.

“I love you, you know.”

Farrier says the words so simply that Collins doesn’t think of protesting or doubting. He feels nothing but the warm glow of it, of the certainty of it, and the tender, contented feeling running through him. 

“I know,” he says softly. “I know because I love you too.”

Neither of them need to say any more. Farrier gently winds his fingers through Collins’ hair while Collins settles himself on Farrier’s shoulder and closes his eyes. Just for a moment, he thinks.

 

Birdie scrabbling at the door forces them to get up in the end. They have a rather late breakfast of poached egg and toast and set off to spend the day exploring. It’s too cold to swim but Birdie is drawn to the sea anyway. She tries, without success, to chase seagulls and has a go at digging holes in sand. They walk for miles along the coast and back inland, talking of everything and nothing, sometimes content just to walk together in silence. It’s perfect. Collins is in his early twenties and never been properly in love before. He thinks it’s forever.

They have fish and chips for supper, sitting on the promenade with Birdie whuffling at the greasy paper and begging. The sharp wind has made Collins’ face burn and tangled his hair. For all his legs are aching, he feels content in every limb and a couple of pints of cider complete the work. The night is spent sleeping soundly, curled in each other's arms, Farrier tucked behind Collins in the narrow bed while Birdie sleeps across the doorway, snuffling and snoring in her sleep.

They pass another three glorious days together in the same way before they have to return. 

When they get back they meet Canfield at the gate, who leans down to tickle Birdie's ears. "Good leave?" he asks.

Collins is too busy being happy to pretend nonchalance. "Very good," he says, smiling broadly. "And you?"

Canfield smiles in turn. "Yes, thank you. All’s well at home." He gives Birdie another pat and his expression flickers to something sadder. Collins wonders if he misses home, who he's missing, but Canfield never volunteers much in the way of personal information.

Collins thinks it's a promising sign that Canfield is warming up to Birdie. He plays a couple of games of fetch with her that week and lets her sleep on his feet in the dispersals hut when Collins and Farrier get too involved in a card game to give her the attention she thinks she deserves. Collins’ expectations had been low so this feels like definite progress. He certainly isn't expecting Canfield to do more, but once again he's proven wrong.

 

A visit from the top brass is planned. Something about inspecting the troops that has Farrier rolling his eyes, particularly with the worsening news from Europe. The airfield suffers under several days of cleaning and polishing. Uniforms are inspected. Squadron Leader Hawkins goes about looking harried

On the day, they are obliged to shut Birdie up in one of the hangars that isn't due to be part of the visit, with an engineer in charge to look after her. Collins feels guilty when she whines as if she can't understand why she's not allowed to join in. Unfortunately she's neither an official mascot, nor an indicator of a well-run airfield and their visitor is known for being rigid in his enforcement of the rules. Hawkins makes his opinion on the matter quite clear. 

Collins ends up standing next to Farrier for the occasion, both of them in dress uniform. Farrier had caught him and fussed over his hair and tie that morning in a way that Collins found pleasingly proprietary. Farrier looks good in uniform. He often wears his flying jacket with his battle dress uniform, which fits the classical picture of the experienced pilot, but there’s something about him in the dress blues with its shining buttons. Collins keeps sneaking a look at him out of the corner of his eye.

As with any formal occasion in the RAF there seems to be an enormous amount of standing around waiting. They manage it with varying degrees of ease and fortunately it isn’t too warm so nobody is in danger of fainting. Farrier has horror stories about that from an inspection from the royal family with all the men lined up in full sun. Collins tries to keep his fidgeting unnoticed while the top brass go through all their rituals of handshaking and saluting. The official visitor is wearing so much gold braid he looks like a Christmas tree. He wanders down the line of men, nodding without speaking while Hawkins walks alongside doing all of the talking, wearing a frowning expression that could be habitual or disapproving. Collins takes care not to meet his eye, instead gazing somewhere over the man’s left shoulder when he makes his salute.

At the end of the inspection Collins hears a sharp voice barking, “what is this?”

Collins takes a quick look and feels his stomach drop. Birdie, in all her enthusiasm, has joined the end of the line of men. In her mouth she has her ratty old tennis ball, which she presses into the white gloved hand of their visitor.

“Sir,” Hawkins says, but he goes no further, apparently searching for words.

“Whose dog is this?”

Collins shifts, wondering if he ought to own up. Stickler for the rules the man may be but it will come out eventually. If only Birdie had just stayed put, or not brought the damn tennis ball. She drops it at the visitor’s feet, disappointed at his lack of enthusiasm for the game. He glances down at his hand.

“Nobody’s dog, Sir,” Canfield says, taking a step out of line.

“You mean she’s a stray? You can’t have a mutt running about!” 

“No sir. I mean Sir, that’s nobody’s dog. You’re addressing Flight Officer Bird, Sir. In charge of morale.”

The already silent parade ground takes on a more significant silence. Everyone is holding their breath. Collins turns, wide eyed, to Farrier. He’s never heard Canfield say anything like that before. He’s bordering on insubordination, to a very high ranking member of the RAF. 

The visitor walks slowly up to Canfield, who is standing perfectly at attention.   

“Is that _Canfield_?” he asks.

“Yes sir.”

“Good God man, I’ve not seen you since bloody Ringway!”

“Sir,” Canfield says. He’s smiling. Collins hears Farrier sigh with relief.

“Still the same old Canfield then. You haven’t changed. Never did know when to keep your mouth shut. So this is Flight Officer Bird is it? I suppose you want me to throw that?”

He picks up the tennis ball and throws it in a beautiful arc towards the grass. Birdie scampers after it, ears flying as she runs.

“Good to see you again, Canfield,” says the visitor. They shake hands and he turns back to Hawkins. “Shall we go in?”

With the visitors safely indoors, the men are dismissed. “And get your fucking dog out of sight, Collins,” is the parting shout from the Flight Commander.  Collins whistles for her to come in and there’s a general move towards Collins’ room.  

“Well,” Farrier says, frowning at Canfield, “didn’t think I’d hear you say that.”

“No, I don’t suppose you did.” Canfield’s mouth twitches up at one side. “We were all new pilots once, you know. I did my parachute training with him.”

“Well thank you,” Collins says, “I thought for a moment he’d send her packing. Oh God when she handed him that disgusting old ball!”

“We need a drink,” Berryman announces. “Come on, what have we got hidden away?”

Collins is out of everything drinkable but Farrier has a half empty half bottle of scotch and Canfield has another. They sit perched on the beds in their uniforms, sipping out of tooth glasses and mugs while Birdie rolls about on the floor, legs in the air, apparently very proud of herself.

They decide that this means Birdie is an official RAF dog now and somewhere in the conversation, when Collins is protesting that Canfield gave her a WAAF rank equivalent to Flight Lieutenant and that he’s now outranked by his own dog, they decide that she ought to have wings.

“I’ll design something,” March offers.

“Something befitting a senior officer,” Berryman says. “I’m only surprised you didn’t have her outrank all of us.”

“I’m sure she’ll be promoted,” Canfield says. “Won’t you, girl?” He sits on the floor beside her to give her a tummy rub. Birdie wiggles. She’s getting fur on his uniform and he doesn’t seem to mind. 

“She should have her own motto too.” Farrier is grinning at Collins over Canfield’s head. He’s never seen Canfield so friendly either. 

“What’s wrong with the RAF motto?” Collins asks.

“Per ardua ad astra? Through adversity to the stars. Birdie doesn’t want stars do you girl? You’d like something better.”

“You can’t have ‘through adversity to the dog’s breakfast’,” says March, topping up his glass.

“No, but you could say ‘through adversity to Birdie’. She’s the one waiting for us when we come home after all.” Collins rather likes that idea. “What’s the Latin for bird?” 

“Avis? Aves?” March scratches his head. None of them remember much of schoolboy Latin. It seems too long ago.

“Don’t look at me,” Farrier says, lying back on his bed and putting his hands behind his head. “I hated Latin.”

“Avicellum,” Canfield offers, still seated on the floor. “It means little bird, that’s the best I can manage for Birdie.”

It takes a while, but Birdie does get her badge. RAF wings stitched onto a new collar for her and the motto ‘ _per ardua ad avicellum_ ’. Collins takes a photograph of her wearing it. She looks extremely proud.


	5. Chapter 5

Collins always ends his story there, with Canfield and the five of them drinking together and Birdie’s new collar. He runs his fingers over it now: the slightly faded wings against the broad, brown leather. To continue would mean talking about Dunkirk and he doesn’t talk about that to anyone. It was the end of Fortis group: even after he returned from Dunkirk they retired the name. While the men around him laugh and move on to other stories, he stares into the dregs of his pint and remembers.

The mission to Dunkirk begins like any other. The call comes, then after the usual farewells to Birdie, onward to the enemy coast with Fortis Leader in command. He gets snippy about Collins and Farrier talking on the radio. Farrier is twitchy because he doesn’t like flying so low. Collins feels his eyes smarting from staring into the sun.

They lose Canfield without ceremony, without even seeing what happens. That’s what makes it such a shock afterwards, when there’s time to think about it.  One moment he is there and the next there is only static on the radio and wreckage in the water.

Then Collins, wondering at his own calm because he knows he’s going down. Farrier wishes him luck as he goes and it’s a wrench to be separated from him, to leave him in the middle of a fight. He sees the wing wiggle Farrier gives him, waving goodbye as the fear rushes back to Collins like an avalanche. The fear of slowly sinking: drowning and trapped. 

He never gives up. Even when he knows it’s probably hopeless, he fights. He keeps that hope, right through his own rescue, through watching the dogfight in the air. He mutters encouragement to Farrier as if he can hear it. He wishes he was up there: he wants them to be wingtip to wingtip again. He keeps hoping, right until the end, believing that Farrier will be alright. Believing that he’ll get home again somehow. He believes right up until he sees that Spitfire gliding, powerless, and the realisation hits him that for all his belief that the two of them are in this together, perhaps it really does end like this with Farrier gone and Collins still here, alone.

Dawkins sees it happen. He puts a hand on Collins’ shoulder, fatherly and kind. Maybe he’s thinking of his son. Collins wraps his hands around the offered mug of tea and is surprised to find them cold. Dawkins treats him like one of the crew, even though he only came aboard minutes before the other men. It helps. He doesn’t feel so lost like that. He tells them about Birdie, waiting for him. Peter shows him the photograph on the cabin wall: Dawkins and sons with fishing rods and a small terrier at their feet.

It takes Collins a very long time to get home. The boat trip means they return in darkness and then there's the long train ride up to London and back to his base. He even has to borrow the pennies to call and tell them he's still alive.

On his return, March greets him with serious face and a warm hand on his shoulder. People are _kind_ which hurts. They all know he flew out with his group and came home alone. Perhaps he should be grateful they don't blame him, but his salt and oil stained uniform tells its own story about the trip he had.

Berryman, seeing him coming, brings Birdie out to him and Collins drops to his knees right there on the concrete road outside the dispersals hut. She sniffs at his strange smell (the sea, the train, the boat - she has never met these smells before) and whines. She wriggles round to look behind him, where Farrier ought to be.

"I'm sorry," he says for her ears only, "I'm sorry, it's just me now girl, just you and me." He thought he might cry, but he doesn’t. 

After that he gets leave, which he doesn’t know what to do with. He sends the photo of Canfield and Birdie to Canfield’s widow. Canfield never talked about her much, but the letter Collins receives in return suggests that his was a happy marriage, now painfully broken apart. The children liked the photograph of Birdie. Small comfort, Collins thinks. He gets a letter from his mother too, full of home gossip and underlying concern. He doesn’t want to read it at first, but when he does it helps. There’s no news from Farrier. He has just disappeared into the sands of Dunkirk. 

Needing more distraction, Collins goes to the Squadron Leader and asks to go back on duty. Hawkins eyes him sharply over the desk.

“You sure you don’t need another day or two? There’s no shame in it.”

“No Sir, just want to get back to it. Make myself useful.”

“Am I going to have problems with you, Collins?”

“No Sir.”

Hawkins hums disbelievingly, but he signs the order anyway. They give Collins a new Spit, which has a new factory smell instead of the fear-and-sweat smell of the one he left sitting on the seabed off Dunkirk. He gets promoted too: Yorker One now not Fortis Two. Shortly afterwards he becomes Yorker Leader, chaperoning two boys so young it makes his teeth hurt. He wonders if that’s how Canfield felt.

Birdie is his dog now. He only realises it when he overhears a new pilot saying, “that’s Collins’ dog”. With the Battle of Britain in full flow there’s precious few men left to remember Fortis group. March is shot down but survives to be shipped off to convalesce and Berryman is transferred to a new squadron, badly in need of experienced pilots. They are replaced by a pilot Collins barely learns the name of before he's killed. Then a succession of young men. Collins photographs them, writes their names on their pictures, and never mentions them when they're gone. He hears nothing from Farrier. He knows that he survived the landing and was declared a POW, but after that it’s just silence. He gets a letter from March though, to say he’s on the mend. He mentions Berryman visiting and Collins desperately hopes they are happy before he puts them out of his mind. Better to think of them happy in that moment than wonder what happens after.

Birdie follows him wherever he goes now. If he’s forced to go somewhere without her he misses the presence beside him. It makes him distinctive, as well as being one of the old guard now. They put a bit about him in the paper: not as famous as Bader or Gibson of course, but enough to make a story out of it. They take his photograph with Birdie, next to his Spitfire, and he ignores the thought that Farrier ought to be there beside them both.

He grows a moustache for a while, because he feels he ought to. It fits the character he’s becoming. He meets his older brother on a rare day of overlapping leave and gets mocked for it.

“Trying to show you’ve grown up, are you?” his brother says, which is a bit much considering Collins remembers Stephen growing a particularly unsuccessful beard as a medical student (and what their mother had to say about it). 

“Piss off,” he replies, because they are family after all, and Stephen ruffles his hair and buys him another pint.

“Shame you brought the dog,” Stephen says as he returns, “not that she’s not lovely, but we can’t take her dancing.”

Collins makes suitably apologetic noises, but that was exactly why he brought Birdie with him. He’s been dancing with Stephen before and can’t face pretending to be interested in girls, or being introduced as someone’s baby brother. He feels suddenly all at odds with Stephen and conversation falters against the barrier of all the things he can’t say. He can’t even say that he’s afraid that this might be the last time they meet.

Later he wonders if Stephen does understand, at least a bit. He hugs Collins very tightly as they part ways.

“You’ll be alright, won’t you?” Stephen asks him, squeezing his shoulder. “I know what you have to do, but be careful.”

“Of course, you too,” is the only answer Collins can give. His brother is a doctor on board ship and even a Red Cross is no guarantee of safety.

That promise to Stephen keeps him safe for another three months, but then however careful he is, his luck runs out. He goes to breakfast one morning and wakes up in hospital with no memory of what happened in between. It takes him a bit of time to work out that breakfast was several days ago and somewhere in that time he has flown, crashed, and been taken to hospital to be patched up.

It must be bad because they keep him on enough morphine to make everything blur at the edges, drifting between what’s real and what isn’t. Sometimes he hears someone calling out and then later wonders if it was him or another patient. He thinks he sees Farrier once, standing at the end of his bed. He tries to talk to him, but nothing sensible comes out and he realises days later that he must have dreamed it because Farrier wasn’t in RAF blues but in a doctor’s white coat.

When they cut back on the sedatives and reality drifts back to him, the nurse asks him who Farrier and Birdie are.  “You were calling for them,” she says, “was Farrier flying with you? I can ask someone from your squadron to let you know what happened.”

“Oh,” Collins says, struggling for words, “no, I mean, they weren’t. He’s a friend from a long time ago.”

“And Birdie?”

Collins smiles. “She’s my best girl. A very pretty blonde, all legs.”

The nurse nods with a polite smile that says she’s used to hearing about girls from pilots. Collins carries on. “Beautiful fur too, silky ears, long tail. She’s a Labrador. Our mascot.”

It startles a giggle out of the nurse, putting dimples on her face. Collins thinks that most of the men must be in love with her, looking like that. He can appreciate her attractiveness in the abstract sense. He hopes he can keep his mouth shut on that thought despite the painkillers: it sounds like he’s said enough potentially dangerous things already.

“I want to find out what happened to her though, to Birdie, do you think I can write a letter?" 

It works as a distraction because she hurries off to fetch paper and pen so he can write before she has to go back to ward rounds. He writes to Stephen, assuming that he will worry less than anyone else in the family about what he has to say. He writes a letter that is two thirds about Birdie and only at the end mentions he has ‘a fucked up leg that might have to come off and a face full of more stitches than Aunt Maud’s stockings.”

He underestimates Stephen’s concern because his reply comes not by post but by telegram - BIRDIE TAKEN CARE OF STOP MOTHER VISITING SOON STOP SENDING FRIEND TO LOOK AT LEG TAKE CARE S. 

His mother arrives two days later. He’d worried about her visit, but she comes in smiling and jolly, calling him her ‘darling boy’, squeezing his hand and asking him what he thought he’d been doing to himself. For a moment he could be six again, coming home from school with a grazed knee. His only indication that she is upset is when she leaves and he notices matron putting a hand on her shoulder.

Stephen’s friend visits a day later: a big man, built like a rugby player but with a broad smile and disarming friendliness. He charms the doctor who has been looking after Collins, along with his mother and matron. He says he’s willing to do a couple of days’ work for the hospital as a favour for Stephen, including having a good look at Collins.

“You’re very lucky,” the nurse tells him, “he doesn’t normally visit a military hospital. He’s got a civilian practice in London.” 

“He was friends with my son,” Mrs Collins says, looking up from her knitting. “They trained together.”

The end result is that Collins has two further operations, which keeps his leg although they can’t fix his knee altogether. They tidy up his face as well, and for the first time he gets the bandages taken on his left eye. He’d been afraid, for a while, that he might have been blinded.

His mother has to go home a few days later, when Collins is still groggy from the operation, but by then she’s ensured that matron is keeping an eye on her boy for her and he probably has a better experience of hospital life than most. He asks for his camera and takes photos on the ward: nurses and patients. Sometimes it’s for fun and sometimes so the other men have a picture to send home. He’s in better shape than most so makes himself useful while he navigates walking on crutches. He goes and sits with other patients when he’s bored, or reads to them. Some of them die, but he doesn’t mind too much. He’s used to it, and he thinks it’s better than them dying alone.

After a time he’s discharged to his family’s care. When Collins makes his way out of the front door of the hospital he finds his mother waiting for him, with Birdie at her feet.

“Birdie!” he says, “what are you doing here?” 

“Where else would she be? I’d have thought you’d be missing her. Oh my boy!” His mother hugs him tightly then, even though she barely reaches his chin. Birdie wiggles furiously around their feet but she doesn’t jump up at him as he expects. For a moment he’s afraid she might have forgotten him. She must have had other pilots looking after her: he’d been afraid that the squadron might actually keep her as a mascot, since she was never officially his.

“Hey, Birdie,” he says, dropping into as much of a crouch as he can manage. She makes a fuss of him then, licking his offered hand and wagging her tail. She’s gentle with him though, as if she knows. 

“She’s been such a good girl,” his mother says, “they brought her to the station so I could collect her on my way to meet you. Your squadron leader was very kind. I sent your things up on the train. You look better than when I saw you last but you need looking after.” She reaches up and cups his chin, thumb just brushing the edges of the bandages.

“I’m fine mam,” he says, embarrassed at the fuss.

The nurse is beaming at them both. “Plenty of rest and fresh air,” she says. 

“He’ll have those of course,” says his mother, “and I’ll have to feed him up a bit.”

Collins abandons all hope of stopping them. He waits with Birdie while his mother goes to speak to matron, to thank her. She’s always been that way: making friends with everyone.

The three of them manage the journey up to Scotland fairly well considering the state of the trains. Birdie walks on one side of him and his mother on the other, providing a buffer between him and the crowd. It’s rather overwhelming to be out in the middle of things after the order of the hospital.

Collins enjoys being home. On his last leave he’d found it strange to be back in the town where he grew up: the same church and shops, the school around the corner, the four familiar walls of his childhood bedroom. This time, feeling bruised in more than body, it is a comfort to be back in the familiar place.

All his siblings are away except Jessica, the youngest and still at school, so it’s quiet at home. His father is kind but busy: he had come out of semi-retirement at the start of the war, to resume his rounds when the younger doctors volunteered for the military. His mother is busy too, with evacuees and knitting circles and all sorts, but she takes care to spend time with her son. They drink a lot of tea in the kitchen while she’s cooking or baking and he finds himself talking more than he has done before.

One night he even tells her about Farrier, though he only tells her he was a close friend. He tells her about the loss he feels until she leaves her cooking and comes to sit beside him. He fetches the photographs and shows her, picture after picture and face after face. He hadn’t expected to tell anyone about it, but he does, and his mother sits and listens to it all, quietly and calmly, as if he wasn’t telling her about men being shot and burned and blinded and simply lost. The last photo he puts down is the one of Farrier with Birdie. 

“I miss him,” he says, “I know the squadron lost so many but he was my… my best friend.”

“Oh my boy,” she says, “oh my laddie.” She stands and pulls his head onto her shoulder and he realises then that he’s weeping, silent and uncontrollable, into the worn fabric of her apron. She smells of baked bread and lavender and home and he can’t stop crying. He sobs aloud and Birdie whines, nudging at his hands with her broad head.

“Mam?” says Jessica’s voice from the door. She sounds scared: she’s young enough to barely remember her brother crying before.

“It’s alright,” his mother says, “he’ll be alright. You run along now.”

She lets him cry himself out, then tactfully turns away to make tea so he can recover himself. He ruffles Birdie’s fur to reassure her because she’s wedged herself as close to him as she possibly can. He feels… empty, but it is not an uncomfortable feeling. Something has been lifted off his shoulders.

“I’ll make a jam pudding tonight,” his mother says. It’s his favourite. Collins puts a smile on his face and says thank you. That’s the last they speak of it, but it’s enough.

 

As Collins recovers he starts to go out walking. At first it’s to take over from Jess in walking Birdie. She’s been sharing the job with the girls from school, who giggle over her because she’s a pilot’s dog. The giggle over Collins too, which Jess says is stupid. She says it with pride though: other girls have brothers in the army, but nobody else in her group of friends has a pilot in the family.

Unfortunately the girls have also been feeding Birdie when she begs and away from the airfield where she used to run, she’s growing plump. He takes her on progressively longer walks through familiar lanes and fields. He always used to walk for miles as a boy, roaming the countryside that isn’t so far from town. He introduces Birdie to the countryside and the delights of hedgerows and hills, and new Scottish smells. She behaves beautifully around sheep but disgraces herself over grouse. 

“Well, she is a gun dog,” his father says, chuckling over the story that night.

Birdie lolls at Collins’ feet. When he looks at her, she drops her head to his shoes and gazes up at him with her deep brown eyes. She wags the very tip of her tail, a picture of guilt.

“Ah son, when a girl looks at you like that you’d best forgive her.”

“I have, and she knows it.”

Birdie thumps her tail twice against the floor.

 

All too soon, Collins’ time at home comes to an end. He has an appointment with a medical officer based in Edinburgh and then a summons to a meeting in London. He packs his things but leaves the envelope of photographs behind in his room. The only one he takes is the one of himself with Farrier and Birdie, for luck.

Jess has an unexpected fit of weeping over him at breakfast on the day he’s due to leave. He hugs her hard and pulls her plaits, telling her not to be daft. His mother is dry eyed, as she has been every time she’s had to send one of her children back to the war, but she tucks a packed lunch into his bag with care. His father drives him to the station with Birdie and stands on the platform to wave him off. 

A group of small children on the train stare at him a bit, in his uniform and flying jacket and the pink marks still vivid on his face. Fortunately Birdie is far more interesting than he is. She steals sandwiches shamelessly.

"You brazen girl," he says, "you'd think I didn't feed you.  No respect for rationing either." She thumps her tail against the floor and pants at him with egg sandwich laden breath. 

In London he navigates the bombed out streets to find the RAF office he’s been directed to. He waits a long time, wondering why he hasn’t just been given orders to go to a new squadron, or back to his old one.

Eventually his name is called and he tells Birdie to sit and stay. The WAAF at the reception desk says she’ll keep an eye on her for him and he goes in. The man who is waiting for him is young for a high ranking officer and obnoxiously upper class, pipe permanently clenched between his teeth.

"We’re standing you down, old boy," he says without preamble and even though he sounds like the sort of man who says old boy everyone, Collins feels suddenly old and tired when he says it. All this way with an aching leg to be retired. "Feel it'd be bad for morale if you get shot down again. Something of a hero y'know." 

Collins doesn't feel like a hero. He's just survived, and maybe been a bit reckless. He made ace in the Battle of Britain and has been flying constantly since then. Luck, or skill, he's not sure. He doesn't really believe it can be over now. 

“You should be glad: we’ve found you something else to do. You’ve got a transfer to a nice bit of the country. Knew a chap who lived that way. Bloody good shooting. Anyway, papers are in here. Pop along down the corridor and see Grant, he’ll sort you out.” 

Just like that, he’s dismissed.

Collins walks out in a daze, tapping his thigh to summon Birdie without thinking about it. He asks for directions to Grant’s office. Birdie trots beside him and the feel of her against his leg steadies him. Alright then. Collins and Birdie, off to wherever the war takes them next. Even if it’s flying a desk. He knocks and waits for the voice to call ‘enter!’

When he walks through the door, everything changes. Not just a desk job, but one that requires him to sign the Official Secrets Act. One that will send him off to the countryside in the middle of nowhere, where a house full of men and women are busy with maps and targets, planning for the next stage of the war.

“You’ll be billeted on site,” Grant tells him. “Need some officers there round the clock to keep an eye on things.”

Collins probably looks a bit dazed. It’s a side effect of being dismissed and recruited in the space if five minutes, then signing a document binding him to silence for life.

“Don’t worry,” the man says, smiling at him as he stubs out his cigarette, “we’ll let you take the dog.”


	6. Chapter 6

In the officer’s mess things are winding down for the night. Enough of them will be flying tomorrow, taking reconnaissance photographs over industrial areas of Germany. Collins downs his last drink and calls to Birdie, who is curled up asleep under his chair.

He leaves the bar and walks out into the dusky half-light of a summer evening. It’s light enough to walk home without a torch and warm enough, with a couple of drinks in him, to leave his uniform jacket open at the neck. Rather than being based on the airfield, Collins has been working up at what they call the ‘big house’ where the photographs are processed in secrecy. They billeted him in the gatehouse when he arrived because the house itself was full to overflowing.

It’s a ridiculous structure, tiny but still crenelated in the appropriate style for the manor. On one side of the gate the guards have their guard room and on the other Collins has his small sitting room and kitchen combined and a bedroom over it. It’s small but he’s glad of the privacy of it: he’s spent too long crowded in with strangers. It has unexpectedly become a place he’s glad to get back to.

He enjoys the walk too, along the narrow country lanes. Particularly in summer when the hedgerows smell sweet. It’s not too far to walk either, with a stick. Birdie gambols beside him, snuffling along the verge and waving her tail. It's late and there's no reason to call her to heel.

He doesn't expect her to bolt.

She's never done it before. Not since she was a puppy, still being trained. He calls her name sharply and walks faster. She doesn’t come back. Her fur gleams pale as she disappears up the road to the gatehouse.

"Birdie!" he calls again, stumbling into something that's almost a run. It's a quiet road but there's always the chance of a car. 

Distracted by Birdie Collins doesn’t immediately register the man standing by the gate until she runs straight to him. Collins should be worried: a strange man in civilian clothing, waiting for him on a dark road outside one of the more secret locations in England, but there's something familiar about him. Something in the way he bends over Birdie. Her tail wags furiously, her whole body wiggling with it.

The man looks up.

"Farrier?" Collins asks, voice wavering, hand clutching at the gate. He wonders if he's seeing ghosts.

"Collins." Farrier is half smiling, almost shy. He makes no move towards Collins although he leans back a little as the weight of Birdie’s front paws land on his hip. 

“Farrier!” He can hardly get the name out.

Too real and solid to be a ghost. Farrier looks older, a little grey above his temples, and thinner. Collins lunges for him: a hand on his shoulder, stumbling. Farrier opens his arms and they cling together.

“How?” Collins asks, “my God where have you been?”

“I’m sorry,” Farrier says, “I’m sorry darling. I’ve been in France, in Germany. I couldn’t have contacted you. There were reasons…”

“You have a lot to tell me,” Collins says, pulling back so he can look Farrier in the face again and study him. It’s too dark to see properly already. Farrier is watching him back, just as closely.

“So much,” Farrier says. He doesn’t try to kiss Collins then, but if he did Collins would have let him.

Birdie barks at them, impatient, and then jumps up to join the embrace. Her claws dig in to Collins’ side but he doesn’t mind. She tries in vain to reach Farrier’s face to wash him.

“You still have her,” Farrier says. “I missed you both.”

“Yes, it’s still Birdie and me. We missed you too.” For a moment, his feelings become too much for him and his voice wavers. He’s been so sure this day would never come that he hasn’t even hoped for it.

“We have so much to talk about,” Farrier says, as gentle now as he was that morning by the seaside. “I don’t even know how long I can stay.” 

“Then you’d best come in.” Collins turns to open the door, holding Farrier’s hand to draw him in, unwilling to let go for a moment. They go in together, and Birdie, tail waving, follows on behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic unexpectedly took over all my writing and thinking time for a while so I have a few people to thank for cheering me on with it! 
> 
> Collins' new location at the end was inspired by Hughenden Manor where target maps were made for bomber command, although the gatehouse is fictional. There was also a nearby squadron taking reconnaissance photographs from Spitfires and these are the pilots he is drinking with. I’m not sure exactly what he's working on there but maybe I’ll figure it out if I ever write a sequel! 
> 
> Hughenden’s housekeeper was also the inspiration for Birdie’s wings and motto. Her version translated to ‘through adversity to the tea break’. Many thanks to [redacted until after the reveal] for help with the Latin and cheering me on when I thought I'd never get the fic finished. 
> 
> Many thanks to my beta for helping choose Birdie’s name - our conversation was probably even longer than the one in the fic. Collins' determination not to call her after a plane was borrowed from The Secret Life of Fighter Command - a dog named Heinkel which discussed the habit of calling dogs on base after Spitfires and what a cliche it became. 
> 
> March and Berryman are characters borrowed from Man in an Orange Shirt because Collins and March were on stage together in Chariots of Fire. 
> 
> And lastly, this fic is dedicated to the labradors I have known and to my father who, for reasons I leave unexplained, once smuggled a puppy onto an RAF base. I like to think he'd approve.


End file.
